Dana Obleman: Hi. I’m Dana. Today I want to talk to you a bit about “Getting kids ready for bed when you have more than one child.”

I get asked that question a lot, actually. It makes sense, when I think about it. I’m going to give you some of “My best tips around getting kids to bed in a timely manner.” I love my evenings, and I certainly don’t want to spend an hour and a half getting three kids ready for bed.

I’ve picked up some tips along the way that help streamline things, so I could get it done. My goal was get this done, kids in bed, half an hour. Just to give you a frame of reference, I,ve three children, two of which are only 15 months apart. I essentially had three kids under the age of four very quickly.

I totally understand that it can be a bit of a daunting task to think, “How do I get baby, then baby, and now, toddler ready for bed,” especially doing it single handedly. That’s even harder.

I’ve got a partner who’s very hands on, and is willing and able to help most nights. What we did, again, so we could get the most out of our evening, was one would go and clean up the kitchen, and one would go and get kids ready for
bed. We’d alternate nights around that.

Tip number one is “Streamline as much as possible.” I bathed all three of my children together, even when one was a baby, still. I love the bath ring, that suction cups to the bottom of the tub.

You can stick a baby in there, obviously not unattended. You have to be there at all times to monitor. This was a great way to keep baby in one space, then get the other two, shampoo.
I’m also a big fan of getting children to do things themselves as quickly as possible. “Here’s how to wash your own hair. Here’s how to rinse it off and get all these things done on your own, so that I don’t have to be involved in every single step.”

We set a timer, 10 minute bath every night, no exceptions. Timer goes, out they get. Do the dry off. I’d often bring jammies right into the bathroom with me so that they could get their jammies on.
I could help when needed. I could get the baby into her jammies. I’d hold baby while the two would brush their teeth. The more prepared you are going in, the faster and smoother this all goes.

Get the little ones brushing teeth. Then, we move into story time. I’m a huge fan of stories. I still encourage my kids to read for at least 20 minutes before bed.

We’d go into my bedroom, all climb up on the bed, give baby her feeding my baby was a bottle fed baby so give baby her bottle while I’m reading with the other two. I’m pretty good at using two hands at the same time, so I managed to make that work.

Always set a limit to your story time. Two is perfect, never more, never less, two stories every single night. It’s really predictable. Your child won’t start begging for more. That’s not a stall tactic anymore, if it’s always two.
It should be two. Stories are done. Off we go, bedtime, kisses goodnight. Put baby in her crib. Say, “Night night.”

Go to the next baby’s room. Put him in his crib. Two babies in a crib, I had. Put baby number two in the crib. Say, “Night night.”

Go tuck in my older children. Bam. Done. Thirty minutes. “Plan ahead, streamline as much as possible, and get your older children as independent as they possibly can be for their age.”
I hope that helped. Thanks for watching. Sleep well.

Transcription by CastingWords